Cancer is the second leading cause of human death next to coronary disease. Worldwide, millions of people die from cancer every year. In the United States alone, cancer causes the death of well over a half-million people each year, with some 1.4 million new cases diagnosed per year. While deaths from heart disease have been declining significantly, those resulting from cancer generally are on the rise. In many countries, cancer is already the leading cause of death.
Moreover, even for those cancer patients that initially survive their primary cancers, common experience has shown that their lives are dramatically altered. Many cancer patients experience strong anxieties driven by the awareness of the potential for recurrence or treatment failure. Many cancer patients experience significant physical debilitations following treatment.
Generally speaking, the fundamental problem in the management of the deadliest cancers is the lack of effective and non-toxic systemic therapies. Cancer is a complex disease characterized by genetic mutations that lead to uncontrolled cell growth. Cancerous cells are present in all organisms and under normal circumstances their excessive growth is tightly regulated by various physiological factors.
Angiogenesis is the physiological process by which new blood vessels develop from pre-existing vessels. Angiogenesis has been suggested to play a role in both normal and pathological processes. For example, angiogenic processes are involved in the development of the vascular systems of animal organs and tissues.
In certain pathological conditions, angiogenesis is stimulated as a means to provide adequate blood and nutrient supply to the cells within affected tissue. Many of these pathological conditions involve aberrant cell proliferation and/or regulation. Solid cancers and exudative macular degeneration depend upon the recruitment of a new blood supply for continued growth as well as metastasis.